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> Yes, promoters and dismissive skeptics react to each other in an unproductive cycle. We can try to do better. True. But I think I can make the case that dism

> Yes, promoters and dismissive skeptics react to each other in an unproductive cycle. We can try to do better. True. But I think I can make the case that dismissive skeptics have greater value than promoters: they can counter the worst of the promoters (e.g. the hucksters and idiots who only recently deleted their tweets promoting crypto and NFTs). Despite what people think, there is rarely a particular downside to not being first to a technology: early adopters do not routinely make truly excess profits, they just get to take advantage of a wide-eyed, uncynical marketplace. Skeptics tend to moderate over time, and are a little better at spotting the sustainable opportunities than the boosters. There is a particular downside to being an early victim of a scam or a lie in a new field. The scams are worse, more painful, more humiliating, and often happen before regulation creates meaningful penalties. The tech world is negative about skeptics for no good reason, when you consider that robust technology itself is much like harnessed skepticism. Code that doesn't trust its inputs, test harnesses, margins of error, etc. The cycle I think that is the most dangerous is the hype cycle that starts where developers don't talk sales and marketing people out of their worst claims (because it is in our short term interest not to have to get involved with all that stuff while we are working).

skybrian 3y ago
By "dismissive skepticism" I was thinking of the repetitive, lazy, nearly content-free kind, like linking to "killed by Google" every time there's a topic about a Google product, spelling Microsoft as Micro$oft (back in the day), anyone talking about "techbros," or calling an LLM a glorified Markov chain. If you can post it off the top of your head and everyone can predict that someone will say it, is it worth saying? Something to be particularly wary of is reasoning by crude analogy. These people are all the same. These companies are all the same. By contrast, there are skeptics who do research, like investigative journalism and the kind of short seller that digs up dirt and publishes it. This sort of research is often valuable.

skybrian 3y ago

By "dismissive skepticism" I was thinking of the repetitive, lazy, nearly content-free kind, like linking to "killed by Google" every time there's a topic about a Google product, spelling Microsoft as Micro$oft (back in the day), anyone talking about "techbros," or calling an LLM a glorified Markov chain. If you can post it off the top of your head and everyone can predict that someone will say it, is it worth saying? Something to be particularly wary of is reasoning by crude analogy. These people are all the same. These companies are all the same. By contrast, there are skeptics who do research, like investigative journalism and the kind of short seller that digs up dirt and publishes it. This sort of research is often valuable.